All In Your Head
by Alicia Blade
Summary: A snapshot of Mamoru's thoughts when Usagi asks him a dangerous question. First season, 2nd person POV. Maybe not a oneshot after all.
1. Mamoru

All In Your Head  
Alicia Blade

So this story is super short, and the next few posts by me will be one-shots, but after that will be The Professional, Dorothy Smith, Dance to Remember, and Love Potion, all of which are multi-chapters. Yay! 

A note on this story: It's odd. It was written in about an hour on a total whim. I felt like playing with POV, and this was the result. Really, it's more prose-poetry than an actual story. But all in all, the immodest part of me rather likes it… I hope you do too! 

All In Your Head 

You've never hated yourself more than you do at this moment. 

Her question rings in your ears and you can easily think of a million answers: _I'm mean to you because you deserve it. I'm mean to you because you're an annoying, ditzy teenager who lives in ignorant, blissful naiveté. I'm mean to you because you're dumb and klutzy and your childish hairstyle really does look like odangos._

But all you can think of is kissing her. 

And how she's never stood this close to you before and how she smells like cotton candy and how if she begins to cry—and you know she will—you can reach up a hand and brush away the tears with all the tenderness you've always wanted to show someone and never been able to. 

All you can think of is kissing her. 

She's still looking at you, her eyes full of abhorrence as she patiently awaits your answer. Her eyes gleam with hurt and pride and anger and a strong need for something, something she expects you to give to her, but you bite your tongue. 

_Don't kiss her. Don't kiss her. Don't kiss her._

"Well?" she asks, folding her fists on top of her hips and raising perfectly arched eyebrows in anticipation. 

_Don't. Don't. Don't._

"I'm mean to you because…" Your voice sounds scratchy in your own ears and you hope it sounds better in the real world. But then you realize it doesn't matter because you can't finish the sentence you've started. How stupid of you to begin to answer a question you can't possibly answer. Not without lying. Not without making something up. Not without her seeing right through you. 

Her eyes are beginning to lose their fire and you think maybe if you stall long enough she'll forget what she asked and drop the whole thing. Tough luck. 

"Because…" 

_I'm mean to you because you're everything I wish I could be. I'm mean to you because you are everything I wish that I could have._

"What's wrong, Mamoru? Cat got your tongue? Is it because you know you have no suitable answer and you're just a big jerk?" 

And before the words come out, you know that saying them is the biggest mistake you'll ever make in your life. How much do you hate yourself at this moment? 

"Because you render me everything I never wanted to be." 

To you, the answer is perfectly clear and the words echo over and over in your brain, so loudly you figure she absolutely must hear them and know and understand your meaning. 

_weak lost confused helpless nervous pathetic aroused jittery giddy unworthy stupid lonely imperfect crazy hopeless scared dependent completely totally madly head over heels in_

"What is that supposed to mean?" she asks, the venom mixing with avid curiosity and more than a little confusion. 

_I Love You I Love You ILoveYouILoveYouiloveyouiloveyouiloveyouilove _

DON'T SAY IT. 

You force your thoughts down to whispers, worried that even thinking too loud will reach her ears and she'll hear and she'll know and that would be a disaster. 

"Nothing, Odango Atama." You're grateful that your voice is back, strong and scornful. Her eyes narrow once more. "You wouldn't understand." 

She straightens her spine and thrusts her shoulders back defiantly, her little round face becoming crimson, her lips pursed so tightly they're beginning to turn white. And her eyes are beginning to fill up with tears—you knew they would. 

"I asked you a question, Baka! I deserve to know why you're so mean to me! And that was not a suitable answer!" 

All you can think of is kissing her. 

You even know how you would do it. First, you would reach out your right arm and completely surround her little waist, then pull her forward so that her body is fully pressed up against yours. Your left hand would come up and cup her neck, just below her ear so that your thumb rested on her temple and your fingers buried themselves in her hair. You would watch her eyes as they went from confusion to shock to a hint of understanding and the second that you knew that she knew that you were going go kiss her, you would crane your neck and press your lips against hers. You would barely tug her lower lips between yours, wait for her startled gasp, then run your tongue along them before slipping it barely inside. And when you could stand no more of the delicious taste and sensations and thought you would explode with desire, you would pull away, waiting for the dazed and hazy light in her eyes to fade and be replaced with an inevitable question. 

_Why did you do that? _

Because I Love You. 

You know she is everything you could ever possibly want. She is everything you could ever ask for or hope to have in a girl. You know that you will never meet another girl like her. You'll never feel this way for anyone else so long as you live. In many ways, she is your One. She's It. 

You also know, of course, that you don't deserve her, and even if you did, she can't stand you and the look she's giving you now is only proof of that. 

You could spend the rest of your life with her. 

Instead, you will spend the next few moments putting as much space between you and her as you can. Before you kiss her. 

_Don't. Don't. Don't._

Then something flickers in her eyes and you worry that you've been thinking too loud again. 

"Well that answer will just have to do, Odango Atama." _Usako._ "If you'll excuse me."

You slip away from the counter and are careful not to brush up against her as you make your escape toward the sliding glass doors of the arcade. You're determined not to look back, still seeing that very strange look in her eyes. Did she know? Did she understand? 

The doors open, you step outside into the sun and a crisp wind, and the doors close.

Breaking your oath, you find yourself turning around to take one last look, hoping that the glimmer in her eyes (you could have sworn she was thinking _Kiss Me_) is gone. 

She hasn't moved. She's staring at you. The glass offers no protection from her stare that is stripping away your walls and defenses and sanity. You're afraid the wind will blow you over, she's making you so weak, but for a moment you are stuck in a tiny pocket of the world with just you and just her and just a clear glass door. 

She's thinking too loud. You hear it on the string of air that connects your eyes with hers.

_You Baka. I love you. Come kiss me. _

Don't. Don't. Don't. 

But then the look is gone, the words are gone, and you find yourself staring at her real expression. It quite plainly states, "Why are you looking at me like that?" 

Sighing, you turn and walk away, knowing, 

It's all in your head. 

It's all in your head. 

_ It's all in your head. _


	2. Usagi

All In Your Head : Part 2  
Alicia Blade

_ For the record, I don't always succumb to pleas for a sequel. But… you guys were right, this one kind of needed one, didn't it? Will there be more? Who knows, who knows. Enjoy! Dance 4 will be up, well, probably today._

...

It isn't just his eyes that drive you crazy, though they certainly don't help any. And it isn't his body, his height, his hair, his idiotic smirks, his broad shoulders, his cool confidence, his muscular arms, his resonating voice, or the scent of aftershave and earth that hangs around him. But none of these things help either.

What really pushes you off the edge—and it took months to pinpoint it—is how his gaze loses focus when he looks directly into your eyes, and his quirky smile twitches and fades in such a hairbreadth of a second you thought for a long while you were only imagining things, and how sometimes you almost feel like you can read into his thoughts when he's so close and watching you so intently and his hands are clutched around a coffee mug or the edge of a table so securely that it seems as though he's holding himself back, but from what you don't know.

It's in those tiny, peaceful, almost nonexistent moments when you think, when you _know,_ that he's going to kiss you.

Of course, he never does, and your 100 certainty crumbles away with the next stupid jab he makes.

Sometimes, you even think you hear his voice echoing in your head, though he hasn't opened his lips.

_Odango Atama, what would you do if I…_

The voice always fades then, leaving you wondering what he would have said, no, _thought,_ if he wasn't always holding himself back.

Of course, it's only your imagination because, after all, this is Mamoru, and crazy though he makes you, there's nothing really there between you two. To him, you are little more than an annoying flea perched on the skin of his life, and while he swipes at you with insult upon insult, he simply can't get you to go away.

_Because I can't leave you alone._

Because something inside keeps telling you that one day, one day, that flicker in his eye will stay and he really will put his arms around you and brush the hair from your forehead and kiss you. And from that day forward, the teasing will be over, the name-calling will be over, and it will just be you and him in your happy pocket of a world and you'll never have another thing to worry about.

This, of course, is where even that little optimistic voice begins to laugh at you, because there will always be evil and pain and sorrow and even the happiest couple bickers from time to time. Besides, what with the Negaverse and your favorite feline advisor breathing down your neck day in and day out, where would you ever find time for a boyfriend?

But that doesn't keep you from watching him saunter down the street with his nose in an overly large novel. That doesn't keep you from crashing into him—_this time, this time, he might hold me, just for a little while._ That doesn't keep you from calling him every name in the book just so you can inch a bit closer to him, put your finger on his chest, and glare right into those vibrantly smirking eyes, all the while wishing, wishing, wishing everything could be different.

You can't help hoping, because hoping is what you do. So you keep imagining the day when you'll ask him for the millionth time,

_Mamoru, why are you so mean to me?_

And then he'll tilt his head apologetically, the walls around his heart breaking even as you watch, and whisper so that the words reach only you, meant only for you, "Because you drive me so crazy it's all I can think to say."

And that is when he'll kiss you.

But he never does. He never, ever does. Even while those tiny, miniscule moments of his eyes softening and his smirk lapsing begin to grow longer and more obvious, his knuckles grow whiter around that coffee mug as he fights with whatever inner turmoil he's been battling since the day you met.

You pretend that he's fighting the urge to kiss you.

In reality, you know he's probably biting his tongue to keep from pushing you out of his eyesight, out of his life, forever.

But even while your eyes fill with tears and his uncaring smile hardens, you still can't help it. You still have the most undeniable, painful urge to bury your fingers in his hair and push your body alongside his and whisper,

_You baka. I love you. Come kiss me._

But you never do.


End file.
